John Battelle's Searchblog

This is BS. Many analysts have done market checks and have come back with similar data --- Google is selling 30% fewer clicks than last year at the same time. Their recent product changes can't possibly account for such a radical dip in revenue.

I'm not arguing that Google's in trouble but I am calling Rick's work incomplete and only part of the answer. Google's business is slowing down but they are not dead yet.

I could easily see accidental clicks accounting for some 30% of the clicks. Remove the accidental clicks and this shouldn't impact Google's revenue one iota as long as the advertisers respond to increased ROIs with equally higher bids.

Your analysis is spot on. Google adjusting their publishing metrics to better weed out "unintentional" clicks can only help strengthen and support their advertising base over the long haul, albeit at the expense of short term click growth. As a six figure $$ google advertiser, I personally applaud the new measures.

As I explain in this blog post I think changing the clickable area of AdSense ads is only one piece of the equation. Another mentioned by George Reyes in the Q4 earnings call was removal of high CTR, low quality advertisers from the network (made for AdSense sites). And I submit a 3rd reason -- the continued rollout of Universal search. Simply put, the images in the middle of the SERPs are attracting eyeballs away from the paid listings at the top and right. Bottom line, though, these developments are good for marketers. They help make clicks on ads more qualified. This, in turn, compels marketers to bid higher CPCs. So less clicks could actually mean more revenue for Google. Maybe not short-term but certainly long-term.

So you link to blog spam rather than my original post.

Better to link to a Spam blog than a blog about spam?

What's up with that?